Final defendant guilty in fatal Fenger beating

Fenger High School student Derrion Albert, 16, was beaten to death by a group of other youths Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009, in a vacant lot next to a community center in Chicago's Roseland community. Witnesses say Albert got caught up in the melee that was a culmination of a simmering rivalry between two groups of Fenger students, one that lived near the school and the other from the Altgeld Gardens housing development. Chicago's continuing struggle to combat youth violence over the years has sparked everything from gang interventions to an ambitious plan in Chicago schools to pair troubled youths with intensive mentoring and even jobs. This latest spasm of violence is bringing federal education and law enforcement officials to Chicago.

Shortly after watching a jury convict the final defendant Wednesday in the videotaped beating death of her son outside Fenger High School, Anjanette Albert was asked whether the grieving process might get easier with the trials now behind her.

She stood in the lobby of the Cook County Criminal Courts Building, struggling to find words to express the loss of Derrion, 16.

"No," she said haltingly, "I don't think it's ever going to get any easier, with him not being here."

Lapoleon Colbert was the fifth person to be convicted of first-degree murder in Derrion Albert's death in a September 2009 melee that made worldwide news after the brutal video went viral on the Internet.

After a two-day trial, the jury of 11 women and one man deliberated a little more than two hours before reaching its decision.

As the verdict was read, Colbert, now 20, stared straight ahead with his hands clasped on the defense table, his eyes slowly welling with tears. He faces 20 to 60 years in prison when he is sentenced July 19.

Outside court, Colbert's father, Anthony Dawson, said he was saddened but stood behind his son, whom he described as a good kid who was doing well in school.

"It was a bad moment in life, which all of us have sometime," Dawson said. "It's just a tragedy. I'll tell him to hold his head up as high as he can."

Colbert, at the time a senior at Fenger with no criminal record, was seen on the infamous video kicking Albert in the head and then stomping on his body as he lay defenseless on the pavement, prosecutors said. The melee broke out among Fenger students from the Altgeld Gardens public housing complex and rivals from "The Ville" neighborhood near the school.

Albert's mother said Wednesday that as has hard as it has been to watch the video of her son's murder over and over in court, she was thankful the tape existed.

"If we didn't have that tape, we probably wouldn't have gotten everyone involved in this," she said. "So I'll watch it."

In his closing argument, Colbert's attorney, Michael Clancy, said his client "made a horrible, stupid, disgusting mistake" but that he was not participating in a mob beating as prosecutors charged. He said Colbert was merely trying to walk home with a friend when he was swept up in the melee.

"He's not guilty of being a part of that mob that killed Derrion Albert," Clancy said. "They can point to that tape all they want, but it's obvious &#8230; there were two groups fighting and Lapoleon Colbert was part of neither."

Clancy also called on jurors to "tell your government" that it was not OK to punish a young man for the failings of the city, public school system and other adults in creating the violent environment that led to Albert's death, an environment that was beyond Colbert's control, he said.

Assistant State's Attorney Kathy Bankhead mocked that assertion.

"There are some things that are beyond our control in this life &#8211;- how we act is not one of them," Bankhead told jurors. "That, we can control &#8230; that, we must control."

Four others have already been convicted of Albert's murder. Eugene Riley, 20, is scheduled to be sentenced this month; Eric Carson, 18, has been sentenced to 26 years in prison; Silvonus Shannon, 21, received 32 years in prison; and a 15-year-old boy was found guilty in Juvenile Court and will remain imprisoned until his 21st birthday.

Albert's grandfather Norman Golliday said he sympathizes with the predicament the defendants found themselves in, where the potential for violence loomed over everything, including just getting to and from school.

The family said the city has shown some strides since the Fenger brawl in providing safe passage for students, but in Albert's case, it's "too little, too late," he said.